Pharma Companies Losing out on Billions Because of Non-Adherence, Report RxAdherence Speakers

Thomas Forissier favors an aggressive, comprehensive approach for tackling medication non-adherence, and for good reason. U.S. pharmaceutical companies are losing $188 billion each year because of non-adherence, according to analysis conducted by his firm, Capgemini Consulting, and by HealthPrize Technologies. “Money is being left on the table,” says Forissier, who serves as principal at Capgemini. “We were surprised at how high the numbers actually were. We didn’t have clear expectations, but we did figure that the number would be much higher than that quoted in industry.”

Forissier will join Katrina Firlik, cofounder and chief medical officer of HealthPrize, to share their findings along with the methodology used at the upcoming RxAdherence 2013 March 12 in Florham Park, NJ.

Capgemini and HealthPrize have been working on patient adherence for multiple years and felt that the alarm needed to be rung. “Adherence is not getting the attention it deserves,” Forissier says. “It is often just a secondary metric.”

Even if drug manufacturers do have adherence programs in place, “they often get diluted in terms of content and messaging as they move from initial pilot to implementation, and then get extended over time.”

Forissier says it is important for drug companies to first understand the “leakage” that is occurring. “You have to look at the loss in terms of the potential revenue that could be made,” he says. “Then you can understand how big this is.”

During their research, Capgemini and HealthPrize looked at IMS sales data. They then conducted a broad review of adherence studies, taking into consideration size, duration, methodology, results, and analysis. “We tried to be as thorough as possible,” says Forissier. According to their findings, 59% of all pharma revenue, and 37% of all potential pharma revenue, is lost each year.

Capgemini and HealthPrize arrived at a number of recommendations for restructuring adherence programs, which Forissier and Firlik will share at RxAdherence. “It is important for adherence to be a key performance indicator at the senior executive level, and there must be accountability for achieving it,” he says. Drug manufacturers must build programs that include a “closed-loop approach to patience adherence,” and they must get corporate support, Forissier says. They also must choose able partners that can help.

Packaging is a “really important” component of an adherence program, says Forissier. He takes a broad view of packaging, arguing that when it offers an adherence-promoting feature, “packaging meets a medical device.” He notes that there “are tools for delivering a drug bolus, and there are alarms and counters. And there are good arguments for blister packaging. However, true improvements require changes in paradigm. Moving toward remote monitoring closes the loop between the patient and the rest of the healthcare community, and sets the conditions for disruptive change.”

To recapture the lost revenue, Forissier suggests a “fundamental rethinking of the entire pharmaceutical value proposition.”

To learn more from Forissier and Firlik, register now for RxAdherence 2013, organized by the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council.